Review: Danny Custodio • by Bart Gazzola • 1

Hamilton Arts & Letters “Foreigners forget their place (having left it behind). Given time, they begin to think of themselves as our equals. It is an unavoidable hazard. They introduce into our austerities their Italianate blandishments.1” Danny Custodio's Flower Carpets / Tapetes Floridos are seductive. Sharing a room with them is to be overwhelmed by them, their colours and intensity. A visitor, standing in their presence, can be forgiven for not being immediately concerned with the ideas and history that have shaped and informed them. Rose of Sharon, Euonymus, Sumac or Yellow Maple, Euonymus Alatus, Oak (both 2019) allude to a straddling of photography and sculpture, as the delicate petals, the leaves and other richly coloured and textured flora are rendered with such vivid realism that they seem to invite your touch. In some ways, this is 'picture box' space: the details and the rendering of these plants are like objects held in abeyance, living eternally in these images, but the flowers and such now long since dead. There's a meticulous vision to Custodio's work: too many artists don't employ digital media so much as a way to 'see' or 'render' more exactly as a means to correct mistakes. But you almost expect to smell them, to have the room redolent with their fragrances.  [  >>>>>  FORWARD ] 1 "Christopher Columbus and Queen Isabella of Spain Consummate Their Relationship, Santa Fe, January, 1492" from Rushdie, Salman. 2005. East, west. London: Vintage Books.    + [Distillate © HA&L + Bart Gazzola {from the Greek bios} -- the course of a life.]